The Paradox of a Mountain

I never thought I'd be here again
Open my ears just to hear again
The voice of One who speaks in wind
The voice of love that drowns out sin

Waiting on transfiguration
But this heart's still bent
Toward wicked and evil
Instead of walking in the path
That I was meant to take

And pioneer a new pathway
But it feels like I'm all talk
In Your Master play

I wanna be righteous but the mask
Proves that I've been acting
Talk a good talk
But only sometimes it leads to action

See I've been living off of yesterday's leftovers
No daily bread
Just yesterday's memories as they play over
Again and again

In my mind and it must be a crime to
Only reminisce
When I was created daily to be
Filled with this

Spiritual blessing
Of Your manifest Presence
Could You show Yourself to me
A peasant

Because I love the mountain moments
Where I'm flying like the pheasants
But lately I've been in the valley
With all these tears on my parchment

Yea I like the mountain moments
Where I feel like Peter
Like God, it's just so good
For us to be here
Let's build a couple shelters up
Just so we can chill here

And never go down the mountain
But then a voice from heaven shouts
And basically tells me to shut up
And listen because reality can't
Happen in the clouds and

I know it's true that You broke
The chasm between me and You
But life would be so much easier
If there weren't valleys to walk through
If my dreams always came true
Skies always remained blue
But that's child's play milk not meat
Like growing up on Blue's Clues

See I know that the sky must go gray
Because we need the rain sometimes
We need to feel the lows of life
And be drained sometimes
Or else we'll get caught up in the highs
And be derailed by the lies
Thinking that we can sustain ourselves and
Only need to pray sometimes

Man the devil's at my throat
I feel like his prey sometimes
Like the vulture's hovering over roadkill
As they fly
Looking for a chance to swoop down
And grab a meal from the sky
Pardon if I'm whining
But it's just how I feel sometimes

I guess I just need some time
To process Your process

You never take us from mountain to mountain
It's never just blessing to blessing
Your way of doing things is struggle
Sandwiched between the blessing
And the times of the grind where it feels
Like life's compressing
Is when You shape me and mold me
And my soul experiences stretching

It's the only way that a diamond could come up
Out of the rough
See I love that use my weakness
Just to prove that You alone are tough

And as I travel through the stuff of life
I know that there's no hiding in this valley's hike

The valley exposes my fragility
And causes utter dependency
So that no man could ever splendor in me

And rightfully so
Cuz I'm just a jacked up Joe
And you're seeing me at my highs
But not the One who holds me in my lows

And yet, as I reflect on Your story
Viewing You alone as Holy
I realize that You even changed the meaning
Of the mountain top moments

Jesus ascended to the hilltop of Calvary
Forever changing the meaning of what
A mountain moment should be
Taking a cross in between
Two thieves He showed that even the
Mountain moments require surrender and release
And the way that God reveals His glory
Is through the Slaughtered Sheep

So the next time we're on the mountain
Remind us of Your own ascent
The mountain was the moment
Where Your love was meant
To be put to the test
Not to show Whose the best
But to show that a True King
Dies in place of the rest

So Jesus if I find myself on the mountain
Remind me of what it means
That I should probably be in the middle
Of two people I don't belong in between
That a mountain top moment
Isn't meant to display my high
The mountain top moment is where I come to die

And if I find myself in the valley of despair
Where I've become numb to Your presence
And can't even sense You're there
Help me to know that's where Your Spirit
Says prayers through the utterances of my words
When the pain I can't bear

See the paradox of a mountain that I pray
You would see is that Jesus' mountain top moment
Resembled our darkest valley
He was crucified on a mountain for the world to see
And what we thought would be the end
Began a new history